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Vikings: Odin, But Not Really

Again with not actual gods, but strong hints that there are gods. Another planeswalker actually.

Odin searched for wisdom. He did so by exchanging his eye for it, as well was pierced by his own spear and hanged from the Yggdrasil for nine days for the very same purpose. Now, by hanging from the Yggdrasil, Odin learned eighteen magical songs and eighteen magical runes. I’m not going to come up with 36 distinct abilities, but the idea of self-sacrifice for knowledge is something great.

Odin is clearly blue-black. Knowledge is a blue thing and ambition is a black thing. You might not think of him this way, because black has such a strong connotation as the evil color, but looking at these myths, there’s no question. Other myths might make him white, but for our purposes, I’m going with these colors.

Our purpose is this: Although earlier planeswalkers were pretty powerful by their own right, the current lore says that being planeswalker doesn’t bring benefits other than the actual moving between planes itself. They have to learn all the other nice abilities they have.

Therefore, one of these has come to this world to simulate what Odin did to become all-knowing himself. Of course she has some power already, but she wants more (I’m making her a woman, because our first planeswalker was male). She is, after all, black. Of course, she needs some other abilities as well. My first instinct would be some Jace, Memory Adept style first ability, but that seems lazy. Beyond that, I’d rather come up with a character first and capabilities after that. Then again, I don’t want to step on earlier planeswalkers, either. The problem here is that Liliana has covered a lot of ground in black (discard, tutoring, raising the dead, weakness, spreading swamps, creature destruction), and the several blue planeswalkers have most of the aspects of blue covered. Finding design space for this gal is going to be hard.

What we do know about this person is that she is even more ambitious than other planeswalkers, such as Jace and Liliana. What separates this person from most black planeswalkers? She doesn’t just work for her personal benefit. Instead, she works for her personal benefit with a plan. Not just a plan for a quick heist or one murder, but instead, she has been studying this endeavor for years, possibly centuries, doing her best to mitigate risks and be as aware as possible.

At the same time, she is black. She isn’t just studious. She wants this power, so badly. She is patient, but at the same time, she isn’t immortal (even though she has elongated her life) and has really needs to work to keep herself alive. This is one step which will help her immensely.

So, she’ll take risks, but only very carefully calculated ones. She is deceitful, but not by nature. She just will stab people in the back, if she feels she can benefit from it in the long run, but at the same time understands that cultivating allies (not really friends, she doesn’t need those) is harder than making enemies, so she values those people who trust her. I feel like I should call her Lucretia, but that carries very different connotations. Still, can’t come up with a better working title at this very moment, so Lucretia it is.

Lucretia 2UB
+2 Up to one target creature gains -3/-1 until your next upkeep
-3 Take an extra turn after this one. Any player may sacrifice a creature to counter this ability.
-9 Lose half your life rounded up and draw 18 cards.
4

Feels about right… maybe. Definitely both black and blue, but I probably need to work on the first two abilities. Especially the second one. I was happy with it when writing it, but now I feel its not really her, if any creature can foil her plans. Well, I am really happy with the last ability.